Version 1.28

Minion Masters!

Scrats…. Are… WHERE DID THEY GO? Oh no… does this mean the Scrat invasion is over?!

Masters, brace yourselves because the Scrat invasion is done and dusted but we have a new season screeching into Minion Masters and this time it’s going to be darker and scarier than ever!

We’re super stoked to introduce our newest expansion … Malediction!

Cards Added

With this new expansion be prepared to enjoy new cards, balance changes, and the reintroduction of Wild Cards!

• Wild Cards will be now re-introduced but under certain conditions:
• Wild Cards will still remain unavailable in 1v1
• Wild Cards will be reintroduced in 2v2
• Introducing a “Copies Allowed” stat which will define the number of copies allowed for every card to 1, 2 or 3. 
• For more information about the reintroduction of Wild Cards, check out our blog post here 

Balance Changes!

Spirits

• Maximum Health Gain 300 > 400
• Minimum Health Gain 0 > 50

Crossbow Guild

• Production time 4.5 > 4

Swarmer Totem

• Production time  6.5 > 5.7

Dev notes: The old production of buildings have not been performing well since their health/duration reduction, so a bit more value over time should help them become more relevant.

Priestess

• Speed 3 > 2

Dev notes: We like how the priestess is no longer an infinite healing source that stays with the army at all times, but she leaves the army a bit too fast. Setting her speed to two should allow her to stay with the army unless there is a prolonged fight.

Fireball

Dragon Ball

Magma Storm

Grasping Thorns

T.A.A.S/H3LL-F1R3

• Damage 170 > 180

Dev notes: Since the increase of spell cost, a lot of the minions that could barely survive a fireball-threshold became a bit too good at surviving spells. Hence, we moved the threshold to 180, making it a smaller buff mostly being relevant for these specific units (it also makes it easier to remember the numbers, as both daggerfall and these spells end with 80).

Smite

• Damage 150 > 180

Dev notes: Smite could use a buff, so we moved it into the fireball thresholds.

Ardent Aegis

• Delay 4 > 3.5
• Healing 250 > 275

Dev notes: Ardent aegis needs a buff, so making it a bit more consistent and stronger should help.

Rampage

• Cast Delay 2 > 1

Dev notes: Rampage is mostly outshined by Volco/Ragers rage, and most use cases are preemptive, so no real reason for this delay. We’re reducing it to allow for a bit more flexibility.

Daggerfall

Stunlancers

• Now have Call Slitherbound (1)

Dev notes: These cards could use a small buff, and it also buffs slither in general that has been a tad weak lately.

Bladestar

• Damage 100 > 130

Dev notes: Bladestar is a tad hard to use, so more damage should make it more consistent.

Avea

• Quest Threshold 5 > 4

Dev notes: As promised, an Avea buff.It's quite possible it's not enough yet, but we want to see if getting her to relevance earlier. We’ll be closely looking at how she performs in case she needs a bigger tune-up.

Healing Fireball

• Cast Delay 2 > 1.5

Dev notes: Healing fireball missed its target a bit too often, making it a very binary spell.   Letting it hit a bit more often should help with the balance of the spell.

Chain Lightning

• Bounces 10 > 12

Dev notes: Chain lightning needs a buff. To differentiate it more from fireball it gets more bounces, letting it be better against spread out swarms and hit more important targets more often, while still being less good against higher hp units and really clumped up units.

Defenso Chopper

• Health 500 > 450

Dev notes: Defenso chopper is a tad overpowered, it’s doing pretty well against the swarm. But it gets a lot of value against mid-ranged thus making it a frustrating card to play against.

Wrecked Walker

• Mana Cost 1 > 2      
• Health  100 -> 150
• Outlander Tech: Spend 40 scrap to reduce cost by 1

Dev notes: As some feared, a 1 mana bridge grab turned out to be a bit too good. We are adding a small scrap cost to it, otherwise, it’s become a 2 mana bridge grab/small tank. This allows for good usage in decks that have scraps leftover while limiting the power in non-scrap decks.

Howling moon

• Now does true damage

Azali

• Mana Cost 8 > 9

Dev notes: Azali is a staple card in 2v2 far more than she should be. We don't want to kill her, but we do want to reduce a bit of her power. By increasing her cost, her army should be a bit smaller, and you should have more mana to kill her, without completely killing the dream of the Azali swarm commander.

Werewolf

• Attack cooldown 0.9 -> 1.0 seconds

Dev note: Once bitten and lone wolf are a bit too strong while howling moon and Wolf among sheep are too weak. Therefore, we are reverting a small buff to werewolves so that we can see where all the cards land. We’ll probably be planning a buff to both howling moon and WaS next patch once we have a better idea where they land with these stats.

All the below Cards will have the “No-Wild Card rule” thus only permitting using one of each of these cards in any deck:

• Bats Bats Bats
• Black Hole
• Blood Imps
• Brothers of Light
• Brutish Betrayer
• Clear Skies
• Crossbow Guild
• Demon Warrior
• Dragon Nest - Removed Mythic
• Fanriel
• Gambler's ball
• Groggy Woodsman
• Jing Long
• Lone Ranger
• Lone Wolf
• Mana Puff Madness
• Mountainshaper
• Netherstep
• Nyrvir’s Breath
• Once Bitten
• Red Golem
• Ritual Of Servitude
• Rock Rivals
• Scrap Yard
• Scrat Tunnel
• Shen Shock Stick
• Styxi
• Sugilite Shield
• Thelec
• Void Altar
• Wall
• Xiao Long
• Zap Shrine

All the cards below are going to be restricted to one Wild Card allowing for a total of two of each card in the deck:

• Arcane Ring
• Ardera
• Bridge Buddies
• Combustion
• Guardian
• Jadespark Watchers
• Leiliel
• Unholy Ground
• Wizard Puff

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with Vortex not getting a damage increase
• Fixed an issue with minions trying to attack others across the gap, which made Veilstalker behave incorrectly - Thank you Pom
• Fixed an issue with the emergency reposition tunnel spell being used in places where buildings are normally not allowed
• Fixed an issue with the red golem at exactly 1500 health not acting as intended
• Fixed an issue with Fanriel Stormcharge interacting incorrectly with the protection by Guardian - Thank you InCole
• Fixed an issue with Hypnotized Shield Guard of Light dashing across the map - Thank you chimaerok
• Fixed an issue with Boom Buggy not attacking properly - Thank you Matt
• Fixed an issue in 2v2’s showing +2 marksmanship buff from teammate Stormbringer’s perk 2 on unit placement preview - Thank you Pom
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker Crystalline Dashing outside the arena - Thank you Matt
• Fixed an issue with different Volco skins being different sizes
• Fixed an issue with the wrong Morellia using books - Thanks Pom
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker jumping on stealthed units
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker’s ability to interact incorrectly with root and stun
• Removed scrat tunnels from the random pool
• Fixed an issue with Miloween not getting extra sparks from certain spells
• Fixed an issue with Lychanthropy leaving poison clouds. - Thanks Pom

Version 1.27

Minion Masters!

The scrat infestation is about to reach the end of the line! Prepare yourselves for a “Wild” Patch 1.27 zooming into with tons of changes, new cards and much much more!

Best Plan, No Plan! - Season 3

The final season of the Scrats has arrived!

With a ton of new changes, 2 new cards, let’s have a look at what’s in store this season for Minion Masters.

New cards added to the game:

The Season Pass will end on September 8th.

Wildcards removal

At the beginning of July we casted a survey asking your final opinion about Wild Cards! After many years of contemplating, having a lot of conversations and understanding what our players want we will be removing Wild Cards from patch 1.27. We will be monitoring player feedback and game health like a hawk during this patch and let you know what our final decision will be moving forward in patch 1.28. For more information you can check out the Wild Cards blog post.

Mana Generation changes

We have been gathering feedback to reflect on the mana changes we made in 1.26, and combined with our own experience on the difference between 1.25 and 1.26 we feel that we're happy with how 1v1 mana is, but we want a slightly bigger curve over the match, and give players a bit more time to get into the game. While in 2v2 we feel we went a bit too far, especially in the late game, so we are removing the increase in max mana speed, and reduced the starting mana generation a bit.

This will mean that the main change compared to 1.25 is the faster ramping up towards Maximum mana generation, with a slight increase in starting mana generation in both 1v1 and 2v2.

1 v 1 Changes compared to 1.25

• Starting mana generation increased; ~+10% > 5%

2 v 2 Changes compared to 1.25

• Starting mana generation increased; ~+15% > 10%
• Maximum mana generation increased; ~+10% > 0%

Master Changes:

Mordar

Dev notes: Mordar has been getting resses from minions with almost certain value such as walking blind date, wizard puff and snipers too easily. By changing the threshold we hope to reduce the strength of this, while still preventing the heavy coin flippy value of the resses.

• Tombstone minimum charge for resurrection 25->50% (so from 5 to 10 seconds)

Valorian

Dev notes: Valorian has been the best master for a while now, and a big part of that has been getting consistent small values throughout the match by winning trades with the small heals. By reducing the amount of healing this value should be more in line with perks from other masters.

• First perk Heal 18->13

Morellia

Dev notes: Morellia has performed really well after the spell nerf, and despite the breath nerf and wildcard nerf we do think we want to reduce the amount of support Queen’s dragon can get a bit to make it a bit easier to deal with, especially in lower ranks.

• Queen’s dragon(3rd perk): cost 8->9

Card Changes

Dragon Whelps

Dev notes: Flightless has been a card in the top 5 best performing cards almost as long as the card has existed, by decreasing the attack cooldown to 1 second but increasing their mana cost by 1, we hope to get a more balanced version of this card, and all other dragons

• Attack cooldown 1.2 -> 1s
• Mana cost 4->5

Flightless Dragon Whelps

• Mana cost 4->5
• Affected the by the attack cooldown change

Sniper Scrat/ Bounty Sniper/ Sniper Squad

Dev notes: With the spell nerf the snipers have gotten a lot more value making previous buffs superfluous.

• Attack cooldown 3.5->4.0s

Warrior/Divine Warrior/ Zealots/ Avea

Dev notes: Warrior is one of the best performing cards in a long time, while we do like warrior being a staple card that fits in most decks, there should be a bit more room for other cards in the same role.

Zealots has been a very strong meta card for a while as well and can use this nerf as well.

Divine warrior can perform her main duty as the divine wall a lot better now with the taunt, and should not feel this nerf too much.

Avea is a card we will keep our eyes on to see how she performs after this, to see if, and how much she needs a buff.

• Health 400 -> 350

Lost legionnaires

Dev notes: Lost legionnaires are giving a bit too much value with the Empyrean army, by giving shields they are a bit better at tanking hard hitting units, but destroy mid ranged units easier

• Empyrean army: gain shield instead of rage

Stormy

Dev notes: Stormy has been a troublesome card for a long time, especially in lower ranks, and when combined with spirits, shrooms and healing. By limiting the amount of extra health Stormy can get we hope to make her easier to handle. Giving her a spawn stun in exchange should keep the balance somewhat equal in the less extreme abusive situation.

• ZenChi Flow changed to: Stun enemies in range area for 3 seconds

Werewolf

• No longer transfer buffs when transforming
• Attack cooldown 1.1-> 0.9 s

Howling Moon

Dev notes: Howling moon has been pretty good at dealing with the really big units, and with the attack speed buff the wolves get we think the cost should go up one mana.

• Cast 7->8

Lone wolf

Dev notes: Lone wolf has been a bad card for a long time, by allowing her to keep her rage on transform, and combining that with the general werewolf attack speed buff she should become a bit stronger.

• Cost 5 -> 4
• Rework: Summons a warrior with Rage, if lone, summon a Werewolf with Rage.

Wall

Dev notes: Wall is one of the reasons for the mana frenzy game we have been seeing for a long time.

Having a 2 mana shut down a big push for a reasonably long time, in range of the masters is too much value, especially in 2v2. By making the wall less tanky, but more of a fighting building we hope to get it in a more healthy spot in the meta.

• Health 700 > 400
• Melee attackers take 50% damage in return

Stun Lancers

Dev notes: Stun lancers have been really good at shutting down any push with 1 or 2 big units. By limiting their stun duration we hope the defence will be at least more interactive, if not plain harder.

• No longer stuns on every attack
• Stunning Strike: first attack to a minion stuns for 5 seconds

Propeller Scrats/Horde

Dev notes: The propellers were hit pretty hard by the removal of bridge grab and can use some more firepower. Now that King puff is gone we can allow a bit more flying units in a single pack as well, allowing the horde to shine a bit more hopefully.

• Attack cooldown 1 -> 0.9
• (Horde only) if rage, summon 2 -> 4 more

Leiliel's Vortex

Dev notes: Other spells have been outshining Vortex for a bit now, and although we like that its no longer an auto-include card, we do think it can use a little bit extra power.

• Damage 50->65

Zeppelin Bomber

Dev notes: Zeppelin Bomber has been invisible for a long time now, so lets up the power a bit to give  it some gameplay.

• Attack cooldown 1.6->1.4s

Troubadour

Dev notes: There has been a cheesy tactic of getting a Troubadour to face and black holing it to get almost entire uncontested hits on face. By reducing the damage but increasing the attack speed we remove that tactic while also improving how the Troubadour attacking a building looks.

• attack cooldown 4.5->1.5
• damage 300 ->100

Frostfeather Flyby

Dev notes: Frostfeather Flyby is one of the best spells in game right now. We want to lean deeper into the idea of this being a spell using minions by making them move slower and have them get closer to their target. this way ranged units, especially aoe ranged units, and significantly reduce the damage if not stop it entirely.

• Frosfeathers speed bonus 10 -> 7 faster than normal owls
• Range 4 -> 2 (only for this spell, regular Frostfeathers are unaffected)

Sun Burn

Dev notes: Sun burn is also one of the best performing spells, and needs a bit of a damage nerf to allow more units to survive it, while still keeping it as a great swarm counter/rage source.

• Damage 100->80

Wolf Among Sheep

Dev notes: Wolf Among Sheep is over performing and completely outshining legionnaires. By decreasing the wolf's power, we hope to differentiate the 2 cards more, and give both of them a spot to be played.

• Legionnaires summoned 4 -> 3

Nyrvir Breath

Dev notes: Being able to give bridge control, and countering entire pushes WHILE building up ascension was too much power. Giving that power after ascension, but delaying the perks of the masters in exchange should put Nyrvir’s breath more in line with other cards.

• No longer spawns skeletons before accursed ascension,  the after ascension Nyrvir’s Breath still spawns 8 skeletons
• Damage before ascension: 180-> 130
• Damage after ascension: 300 -> 260

R4:Z0R Squadron

• Tax per tick 4 -> 5

Atg

• Health 250->225

Harbinger

• Health 270 ->250

Herald

• Health 270 ->250

Mechanic Changes:

Spirits

Dev notes: Spirits are too good on swarm and glass cannons, and too weak on bigger units.

by limiting the amount of extra health a unit can get compared to their max health, but increasing the potential on bigger units we hope to make spirits a bit healthier, and less abusable.

• Health Boost 200 > 50% of max health (Max 300) (remove flying minions variance)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with Sugilite Shield not blocking Settsu in field attacks - Thanks N!kola
• Fixed an issue with Ghosts stealing units affected by Sugilite Shield - Thanks apexdreambreaker
• Fixed an issue with the Fire Imp side of Void Brothers not showing range radius in the preview before placing - Thanks Last_elf
• Fixed an issue with Netherstep turning Succubus grey - Thanks to Chimaerok
• Fixed an issue where if you have Book open as Akinlep dies, you don’t lose Gong
• Fixed an issue where you could see Valorian’s heal on stealthed units
• Fixed Tantrum Throwers’ description
• Fixed an issue with Stormy not being able to kill Jolo but chain lightning could
• Fixed an issue where reporting a leaving teammate did not work
• Fixed an issue with Marked only increasing damage on ranged units - Thanks DeathShoottOneyOoney
• Increased the Battle Pass xp for each tier
• Fixed an issue with Tech counter stuck at 100 in 2v2
• Updated Morellia’s life steal description to show correct one - Thanks Credmo
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker and Netherstep being able to jump inside the Master tower
• Fixed an issue with Shen’s shock stick’s description showing 40 damage
• Updated Pincer of Dread’s description
• Fixed an issue with Priestless being able to attack if hypnotized
• Updated Priestess’s description - Thanks Steven
• Updated Divine shield’s description - Thanks Lazur
• Fixed a bug with Incubus being randomly feared - Thanks Me
• Fixed spacing issues in text with Dragon Valorian Skin
• Fixed Blast/Spirit Mancers not working if there is another Blast/Spirit Mancer located on the field
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker getting stuck - Thanks miguel14yt
• Fixed an issue with Succubus becoming permanently stealthed - Thanks me
• Fixed an issue with Nyrvir getting stuck - Thanks me
• Fixed an issue with Blastmancer and Spiritmancer interfering with each other in unintended ways - Thanks MasterTommy96, Nightfall and Cosmic Vortex42
• Increased maximum permitted load time in an attempt to reduce the number of timeout disconnects on xbox

HotFix 

• Fixed an issue where trying to queue with wildcards did not show the correct error message.
• Fixed an issue with the Emergency Tunnelling did not get the proper mana cost increase with consecutive plays. - Thanks Tenebra
• Fixed an issue with Bladestar not working for the 2nd player in a 2v2 team.
• Fixed an issue with Lone Wolf considering teammates minions as a cure for loneliness. - Thanks Samu27
• Fixed an issue with Spirit description incorrectly stating that max health gain was 200 instead of 300. - Thanks Steven
• Removed the extra Legionnaire from the Wolf Among Sheep preview.
• Fixed an issue with with Marked breaking damaging spells. - Thanks BadAsAFish80, Nerzl and Anno
• Fixed Localization - Thanks hinkyt25

Wild Cards update

 

Wild Cards have been one of the most widely criticized features within Minion Masters over the years. With 2.0 coming we've decided it's time to take a good hard look at the feature and try to discern what the issues with it are but also what it contributes.

We want our players to continuously have fun and challenge themselves for years to come. For a long time, we've felt that Wild Cards added to that main goal, at least for most players.

We've heard the argument that it disturbs the overall balance of the game and we agree. It is undeniably harder to find and maintain a great game balance with Wild Cards making decks more unpredictable and extreme, adding to a more rock-paper-scissors experience.

So far we have maintained that the feature also allowed for more creativity in deck building and in most cases for more fun. It's no secret that Wild Cards somewhat limits design space when it comes to the more unique and bombastic designs. We've seen several of these cards become problematic over the years when wildcarded (I.e. Thelec, Wolf Among Sheep, Black Hole, Brutish Betrayer, Guardian, to name a few).

Earlier this week we ran a survey asking you all, what you think of the current state of Wild Cards. Through this survey we found that:

• ~60% of players like Wild Cards
• ~36% of players vote to keep Wild Cards as they are; ~31% ask for a change; while ~32% want them flat out removed.
• Generally, we see the call for removal mostly with high-rank players as around ~70% of the Remove votes came from players in Master rank or above.
• We also see that while the positive impact of Wild Cards is more widely spread than the negative, it does seem to be less intense.

You can see the results of the survey here

What happens now?

Despite the majority of players telling us that Wild Cards are good for the game, we're going to go out on a limb. We believe that the time is right to try something else.

We wish to do a test in which we will remove Wild Cards from the game for a full season. That will be this upcoming season starting with Patch 1.27.

After that season ends we will be asking everyone again to see what your feelings are after having tried the game without Wild Cards for a bit. We'll naturally also be following your feedback on Discord, Reddit, and the Steam forum so do share your opinions as we go along.

Why Now?

When Wild Cards were added to the game, there were a total of 77 cards and deck choices were far more limited. Today is a vastly different scenario with more than 220 cards and several new mechanics. This also means that many cards have alternatives that perform similar duties in slightly different ways. For instance, instead of playing with a Cleaver, you could play with a Brother of the Burning Fist. Instead of Whirly, you could play with Fergus, Plasma Marines → Crystal Archers, Scrat Horde → Skeleton Horde, etc.

Therefore, we believe that the time is right to try and reevaluate this fundamental feature of the game. We believe that we have a broad enough variety of cards as well as several options for most functions that Wild Cards are no longer needed in order to create fun, interesting decks. At the same time, the incredible amount of combination possibilities is also making it substantially harder to fully consider Wild Cards with every balance patch. We now believe that the negatives outweigh the positives.

What happens in the long term?

What happens to Wild Cards after the test, we cannot say yet. We will have to see how the test goes and look at the community response as a whole before we make any long-term decisions.

IF we decide to remove Wild Cards permanently, we do have plans to look into the design space that is created in their absence. There are several ways we can make cards that emulate the Wild Card mechanic and we hope to use this to reintroduce the good parts of it in a more controlled manner.

In Conclusion

We'll be removing Wild Cards in Patch 1.27 and most likely remain removed in 1.28 as we go over all the results.

We hope you're all ready and willing to give this a go and that you will share your thoughts with us so that we can make the most well-informed decision when the test is finished.

If you haven't already, join us on:

Discord

Facebook

Twitter

From everyone at BetaDwarf, we thank you for being such a passionate and amazing community. Without you, all this could never have been a reality and for this, we are eternally humbled!

Cheers!!!